


The Question

by Fireskin



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: ME3, Notdead, that breath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-20 09:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22181842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fireskin/pseuds/Fireskin
Summary: Shepherd has made her choice in the heart of the Catalyst. But what happened next?
Kudos: 3





	The Question

A breath.

………….

Where was she?

………….

Another breath.

Who was she?

………….

Floating in darkness…she was lost….but it was false. The darkness was a lie. She wasn’t sure how she knew.

One more breath. A force of will that said “I refuse to die” and proved it with it’s insistence that she gasp in yet another searing, aching bit of smoke filled life.

“ _That’s it Siha, keep breathing.”_

Who? Who was with her in the darkness?

The voice was familiar. The fog that filled her brain eddied in swirls, like the smoke she knew surrounded her, periodically showing glimpses of memory. Brief moments of self.

The voice brought a warm feeling for some reason…an image, tall and lean.

Breathing suspended as she tried with her limited ability to focus on the image until a name came.

Thane.

“Thane?...but...you stopped breathing.” She focused on that one little memory. She could remember…something. She’d loved. But… “Why should I breath when you stopped?”

Was she speaking out loud? A quick internal search left her thinking probably not.

Okay, so this was in her head.

“ _That doesn’t make it less real.”_ His voice sounded so close. Like it was next to her and in her and…far away.

“How does that work?”

“ _What Siha?”_

“How can you be here when you’re dead?” Oh wait…“I’m dead too.”

A memory wafted into her mind with the eddies of acrid air as her body forced itself another breath.

“I told you as you were dying that I’d be with you soon.” She wanted to smile jauntily, but she wasn’t certain how to do that from this darkness. “I kept my promise.”

“ _No Siha, you didn’t.”_

And just like that the cold and numb left her body and was replaced with screaming pain.

And scream she did. Or was that in her head too?

“BUT I WANTED TO!”

“ _No you didn’t.”_

She DID! She’d wanted to die. No more struggling, no more fighting. Rest and blessed peace.

“ _Did you win?”_

Red hot pain and fear and sorrow and…yet the question pierced through them all.

Did she win?

Did she?

Blackness swallowed the question whole.

_____________

The breathing was easier now. The black still held her captive, however as she came to awareness again.

“ _Welcome back, Siha.”_

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“ _Did you win?”_

“I...don’t know. I died before it finished.”

The memory came more easily this time. The darkness peeling back from it like a curtain showing nothing but the red armature as she fired at it.

She couldn’t remember why she was firing, but she knew it was the most important thing in the world. The most important thing in her life. And when it finally exploded she’d felt relief as the light washed over her, burning, blinding… sending her to blessed darkness.

But not answering that blasted question.

“Fuck.”

There was laughter in his voice this time. _“I will see you when all the questions are answered, Siha.”_

And then silence.

“Thane?”

Nothing.

…

“Did I win?”

Still silence.

No… not silence. Somewhere outside the darkness were sounds. The crunch of stone and metal. Voices.

“Oh my God, it’s Shepherd!”

“God, fucking, damn, if anyone could survive that it would be her!”

The sound of tears in one voice, “Thank the Goddess, she lives!”

So many voices, closing in on her. Edging the darkness. So many...

She had to know.

With a supreme effort, the greatest effort she’d ever spent she was fairly certain, she opened her mouth and her eyes to the bright, blinding light. Voice nearly inaudible from the strain of breathing that searing air. 

“Did I win?”

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished my first playthrough of ME 3 where I used the destruction ending... AND I GOT THE BREATH! It made me giddily happy so of course I had to write something. 
> 
> I'm rusty with writing right now and fighting cancer which has sapped a lot of my energy. But if Shep can survive, so can I.


End file.
